


one who keeps tearing around (one who can't move)

by Hexiva



Category: GoldenEye (1995), James Bond (Classic movies)
Genre: Angst, Drag Queens, Gay Bar, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, gay culture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-08
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-13 10:47:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29277195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hexiva/pseuds/Hexiva
Summary: James and Alec's work takes them to a gay bar.
Relationships: James Bond/Alec Trevelyan
Comments: 2
Kudos: 11





	one who keeps tearing around (one who can't move)

**Author's Note:**

> For a generated prompt, "Alec/James, normalisation." For MI6 Cafe's Rarepair February.

It was an unusual target who required the attention of two double-ohs. Usually, they worked alone. But Scott Craig was one of the deadliest hitmen known to the international underworld, and M didn’t want to risk either of them taking him on alone. Alec might have complained more, but he always enjoyed working with James. They were a finely tuned machine. 

The two of them were trailing the target now, down a New York street. They were in no hurry; they were confident in their ability to take Craig out the moment he was alone. But for the moment, they were content to follow and watch.

Craig looked left and looked right, as if he realised he might be being followed, but didn’t seem to spot Alec or James. He took a sharp right, and turned into a small, hole-in-the-wall bar. 

James, never one to turn down a chance to drink on the job, shot Alec a grin, and they followed Craig into the bar. 

The bar was packed, mostly with men, and there was a party atmosphere, the music loud and the end of the bar cleared for a makeshift stage. James blinked at Alec, and Alec shrugged, as if to say,  _ I don’t know any more than you.  _ Their target took a seat at the bar, and the two spies grabbed a booth away from the stage. 

“This is a gay bar, you know,” Alec said, casting a sidelong glance at James.

“I realized,” James said, drily, nodding his head at the next table over where a handsome young black man was holding hands with a weather-beaten red-haired white man.

Alec smiled and leaned back. “How disappointing for you. Not a single woman in sight for you to seduce.”

James chuckled. “I’ll manage somehow. Will you?”

“I’ll survive. Tell me, James, have you ever been to a gay bar before?”

James cast him a faintly surprised - perhaps even affronted - look. “No. Why would I?”

“Our work takes us a lot of surprising places,” Alec said, quickly. His eyes flickered away from the target to the stage, where a man in lipstick was adjusting the microphone. “Looks like the show’s about to start.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the man announced, into the microphone. “Welcome to the Rainbow Room, and let me be the first to introduce our lovely performer for the night, the divine Felicity Spice.” He stepped back and held out a hand, as a tall figure in a red dress with voluminous scarlet hair and matching lipstick stepped up onto the stage. 

“That’s not a woman,” James said, stupidly.

“That’s rather the point of the show, James,” Alec said, his eyes trailing appreciatively over the performer’s broad shoulders and slim waist, attractively displayed by his low-cut cocktail dress. 

The performer blew a kiss to the audience, and the music began, played by a speaker behind him. When he opened his mouth, it was the dulcet, soprano voice of Judy Collins that came out. 

_ “Isn’t it rich, aren’t we a pair,” _ the performer crooned, brushing a hand through his scarlet hair.  _ “Me here at last on the ground, you in midair . . .” _ Alone on the stage, he spun and danced like a ballerina, which perhaps he was, and the usually raucous bar grew quiet. 

_ “Isn’t it bliss, don’t you approve? One who keeps tearing around, one who can’t move?” _

Alec glanced over to see what James’ reaction was. James’ eyes were fixed on the performer, and his face was unreadable. But there was something distant in his eyes, as if he too was moved by the music. 

“It’s a sign of the times, James,” Alec said. “The future is here now.” He smiled. “Better watch out, in case it leaves men like us in the dust, eh?” 

James smiled. “Our job isn’t going out of time anytime soon. The Cold War is over . . . but there’ll always be another war.”

Alec thought of Russia, of his parents, of a little boy left alone in England. He glanced away from James to the performer, but he wasn’t seeing him either.

_ “Just when I’d stopped opening doors, finally knowing the one that I wanted was yours . . .” _

As a child, sometimes, Alec had wondered about the men who had killed his parents. Sometimes with rage, sometimes with a kind of awful, bitter curiosity, like prodding a rotten tooth. Who were they? What kind of men could do something like that?

Sometimes, when Alec looked at James, he saw his best friend, the man who’d always had his back, who’d patched him up after a hundred missions, who would die for him. And sometimes, he saw the answer to that question. James, the loyal patriot, always ready with a bullet and a quip, ready to follow any order. Alec had seen him do terrible things for England - and sometimes, Alec hated him for that, not the righteous anger of someone who truly disapproved of the things James had done, but the bitter, rotten anger of an orphaned child. 

_ “Making my entrance again, with my usual flair.” _

“Did you ever hear about Alan Turing?” Alec said, suddenly.

James glanced at him. “Who?” he asked. 

“He was one of our men. Bletchley Park, World War Two . . . you could say he saved the day for us.” Alec lifted his beer in a mock toast. “Without him, we’d all be speaking German! Although I suppose you do that anyway, you bloody Swiss bastard.”

James chuckled. “All right. What about this man Turing?”

“Like I said. He saved our arses.” Alec sipped his beer. “All of us Brits. And then, after the war . . .”

“He was gay,” Alec said, coolly. “Got arrested, just like Oscar Wilde. The more things change, the more they stay the same, eh? They put him through some ghastly medical procedure, and then he offed himself.”

“Sad,” James said, neutrally.

“What a way to say ‘thanks for saving us from the Germans,’” Alec said, shaking his head. 

James shook his head too, and looked up at the performer.

_ “Sure of my lines, no one is there,”  _ the performer crooned.

“We all know the risks,” James said, quietly. “It’s in the nature of the job. We’re disposable. Deniable. If we get captured . . .” He shrugged. “We’re on our own. There’ll be no thanks for us, either.”

_ “Don’t you love farce? My fault, I fear. I thought that you’d want what I want . . . sorry, my dear.” _

Alec felt that old, bitter anger rise in his chest. “It’s one thing to be captured in enemy territory, and another bloody thing to be arrested in your own damn country,” he snapped.

James glanced over at him. “I’m not saying it was acceptable,” he said. “What happened to him. I’m just saying we all know the risks.”

“You would say that,” Alec said, bitterly. He stared down into his beer, and suddenly he hated the whole situation, the bar, the performer, James, and most of all himself, his own bloody gay self for falling for a man like James. 

_ “Isn’t it rich? Isn’t it queer? Losing my timing this late in my career?”  _ the performer crooned.  _ “But where are the clowns? There ought to be clowns . . .” _ The music drew to a close, and the performer gazed tragically out at the audience, a single glitter tear sparkling on his cheek.  _ “Don’t bother, they’re here.” _

The target glanced at his watch and stood immediately, as the rest of the bar was still applauding, and headed for the door. 

James’ eyes flicked to Alec, and then away. “We should go,” he said. 

“Yeah.” Alec finished the last of his beer. “There’s nothing more for us here.” And he stood. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked it, please leave a comment!


End file.
